


L'appel du Vide

by Yeomanrand



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Where_no_woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-07
Updated: 2010-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Icarus flew too close to the sun because his father would never have let him know how it felt to fall.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	L'appel du Vide

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by shinychimera

Winona hugs herself close, standing at the edge of the rock quarry, staring at the sheer wall across the drop-off rather than down toward the carcass of George's Corvette.

She's unable to repress a sardonic snort at the minor pun, though the moment does nothing to release the rigidity of her spine. Humor is inevitable, even here; faced with a darkness black as space, she has to whistle. But this is not a time for softness.

No matter how deeply she understands her youngest son.

She has left Frank alone in the house with Jim for the last time, because she needs this; the subtle breeze rising up from below, convection currents circling between hot and cold. The sun burns down on the crown of her head, dust like freedom acrid in her sinuses.

She's two steps from the sharp edge; the breeze hasn't yet completely eliminated the fresh scrapes where the 'vette went over. Jim weighs considerably less than the car; his traces are long since wiped away.

The first step taken, she pauses to look up into the unforgiving blue sky; the only star she can see the life-giver without which nothing on earth would grow; not corn nor boys. Even the stone beneath her feet would never have come to be without the gravitational forces the sun exerts on the gases and elements comprising this small and ultimately unremarkable blue world.

She takes the second step, stands with her toes just cresting the lip, closes her eyes and spreads her arms wide. The blood and the inevitable urge to try wingless flight pound through her; in this one moment she is weightless, unaffected by gravity.

 _God damn you, George Kirk._

Dying is easy, she thinks to herself, breathing in the emptiness before her, breathing out the darkness within her. One wrong choice, a strong enough gust of wind, a left turn instead of a right, and everything falls into blackness. Living means surviving every lightning-strike morning; bright and strong and almost too much for flesh and bone to take.

Icarus flew too close to the sun because his father would never have let him know how it felt to fall.

She lets her arms drop and opens her eyes to see the clear blue horizon, pivots on the ball of her foot, riding the edge, and turns her back on the chasm without ever looking down.

**Author's Note:**

> From [Circ_Bamboo's](http://circ-bamboo.livejournal.com/14115.html) Awesomely Untranslatable comment fic-a-thon.


End file.
